After the shambles called the Austrian Grand Prix,
where Herr Schumacher the elder was unceremoniously punted off on the
first corner, the end result has never the less been a much closer contest
for the world driver’s championship. Some of you may remember a few
weeks ago when I said that the McLaren Mercedes team did not appear to
have an answer for the Ferrari juggernaut. That certainly has changed
following two 1-2 results by Ron Dennis’ outfit in the last two GP’s.
Ferrari will not take this lying down, so expect a
rejuvenated Ferrari Team under Jean Todt this weekend. Ferrari have the
cash to do it, being perhaps one of the best funded teams in Grand Prix
racing.
Another team with buckets of cash, but no decent
results, is the FoMoCo owned Jaguar team. Wee Jackie must giggle himself
to sleep every night. I suppose the fact that Johnny Herbert actually
finished the Austrian race must count for something. I predict a certain
gentleman by the name of Jac Nasser will be not pleased and heads will
roll at Jaguar at the end of the year.
Join me “trackside” at Delaney’s in front of the
big screen for the next round this Sunday. The German contingent will be
out in force, this being their home GP, and there will be plenty of
support for Mrs Schumacher’s big boy.
Toyota Echo, 3 and 5 door variants
The Echo (AKA Toyota Yaris) was shown at this years
Bangkok International Motor Show, but models are not for test in this
country yet, but Toyota have already indicated they are interested in
marketing the little car here. Visiting Aussie motoring journo, John
Weinthal has tested the Echo/Yaris in Australia and sent over his
comments. Over the past few weeks I’ve driven two examples of Toyota’s
new small car - the Echo. Clearly this European-designed and
Japanese-built car is significant. In fact most commentators rate it a
real winner. Last week Echo was named European Car of the Year. So, it’s
significant, rated highly by most experts and a multi-award winner
already. All of which leaves me wondering why I can’t get all that
excited.
Toyota
Echo
Echo replaces the Starlet. It comes as a three or five
door hatch or in four door sedan form. All Echo hatches are powered by the
same high tech, high revving, four cylinder engine which pumps out an
impressive - for its 1.3 litre size - 66kW. Power steering is among a long
list of desirable extra cost items - items which mainly are standard on
much of the light car opposition. The four-door has an 80 kW 1.5 litre
engine and power steering is standard. The Echo follows the Mercedes
A-Class along the short and tall body route. The result, as with the A
Class, is great interior space for four people within a short overall
length. The resulting Echo is, to my eyes, rather oddball to look at but
not quite as weird as the Baby Benz. Both are, to put it kindly, different
- and I suspect some of that is difference largely for its own sake.
Echo’s base prices, in Australia, run from $15,000 to
$18,000. But that’s before the government and dealer delivery charges,
air-conditioning or automatic gears. It’s easy to push an Echo beyond
$23,000 and into some impressive larger, more powerful and much better
equipped territory. That said, the Echo interior is very effective with a
sliding rear seat allowing the passengers to decide on a compromise
between passenger leg room and boot space. There’s no headroom or width
problem thanks to the quirky external shape and there is a host of useful
storage areas.
The dashboard is different, effective and attractive,
although I much preferred the conventional instruments of the lesser
models to the backlit digitals of the more upmarket cars. I found the
latter required refocusing - and I didn’t really like the green
backgrounds of either panel type. The Echo weighs from 850 to 915kg.
That’s pretty light, which is great for performance and fuel economy,
but leaves the cars lacking Toyota’s trademark indestructible feel.
Although ride and handling are good, the cars always feel the lightweights
which they are.
Somehow, the Echo message pretty much escaped me, even
after two weeks in two models. I was impressed by the achievement, but
left wondering why they’d bothered in some areas. Other small cars offer
the same or better power and space. Most are better equipped and few are
as expensive. I suspect this is another example of Toyota testing the
market’s willingness to pay a lot for something while it’s red hot
new. That leaves them plenty of room for manoeuvre later with added
equipment, on road pricing or even direct price. Toyota will deny this
furiously, but there’s a real world to contend with - and for the moment
I reckon Echo is somewhat short of a bargain. Impressive, but, well, I’m
still inclined to ask why?
Autotrivia Quiz
Some of you may wonder whether anyone actually wins the
Automania Free Beer of the week. Let me assure you that someone certainly
does. We get entries from all over the world, but the quickest and most
correct entries are coming from the Channel Islands where Sean Jehan must
spend all his time with his nose in books. When he came up with the
correct answer to the first American to win a European GP he even admitted
that it took some research to find it. However, well done Sean - he now
has so many free beers that he can remain blotto for his entire holiday
here in Pattaya when he comes over towards the end of the year!
Delaney’s say they are pitching a tent for him on the forecourt.
Now last week I mentioned one driver who was struggling
financially when he first got into F1 and whose wife had to work at
weekends just to help pay the bills. He drove for Colin Chapman, who
immediately doubled his salary, just so the driver could have his wife at
the race meetings with him. Who was that driver?
That driver was none other than “Our Nige”, Nigel
Mansell. And look ar Nige now! Lovely piece of autotrivia!
So to this week, Nigel Mansell won for Ferrari on his
very first outing with them. Only one other driver has accomplished this.
Who was he?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first
correct answer to fax 427 596 or email: [email protected].
The Performance Country
When you think about performance machinery and where
they come from, most people will either think of large American Iron or
the superbly crafted German machinery. Honestly, I think that these days
both are wrong. Where do the hot cars come from? Japan!
Take for example, the Nissan Skyline GTR’s. These
little road rockets turn in performance times of 4.7 seconds for 0-100
kays and a whisker over 13 seconds flat for the standing start 400 metres.
With those sort of numbers the cars from Stuttgart are the only things to
give you a run for the money.
But the depth in the Japanese motor industry is
fantastic. While we only get the totally pedestrian models from Toyota, in
Japan you can get the Supra with twin turbos that will knock over the
0-100 in just over 6 seconds in automatic form!
Toyota
MR-S
Or what about the luxurious Toyota Soarer JZZ 30 which
comes complete with twin turbos and a video camera in the rear bumper to
make parking easier?
There is also the Toyota MR-S rag tops, a little
roadster in the Porsche Boxster mould which with only a 1.8 litre takes
you to 100 kph in 7 and a bit seconds.
Mazda produced a fabulous two door and very large coupe
called the Eunos Cosmo 20B. This car came complete with the triple rotor
rotary engine and sequential twin stage turbos and another one that stops
the clocks 0-100 just a smidgen over 6 seconds. Definitely no slouch!
Add to all those the Mitsubishi Lancers in the final
EVO forms, the Subaru WRX rocketships and the Mazda RX7 twin turbos. All
gutsy, powerful and very fast.
No, for my money, with all the manufacturers in Japan
building some very potent vehicles, Japan gets the nod as the most
prolific builder of performance machinery.
